Sometimes It Is All Just Fun and Games

Capsule histories of some of 20th-century America’s best-loved dolls, toys and other amusements for young and old.

By Amisha Padnani

May 11, 2017

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Shelves of dolls in 2015 at a Toys R Us in Los Angeles.CreditLiz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times

Toys can be mirrors of society, often invented in response to events and trends, sometimes created to divert attention from what may be happening at the time.

The military action figure G.I. Joe, for example, came out of the Cold War, when patriotism was running high in the United States after victory in World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union. Its creator, Stan Weston, died last week.

Here are some other classic toys and their mark on American culture.

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The original Barbie in 1959 was dressed in a bathing suit borrowed from the doll that inspired her: Bilt-Lillie, who originated in the German sex market.Creditvia Associated Press

Barbie

Barbie changed everything that toymakers thought they knew about children when she strutted into little girls’ hands in 1959.

At 12 inches tall with a scantily clad, curvaceous body and stiltlike legs, she flew off shelves and quickly became a cultural flash point over body image.

No longer were girls seeking out baby dolls; Barbie, a teenage fashion model, inspired them to imagine their grown-up lives. Besides wearing ball gowns and wedding dresses, she evolved to hold more than 100 occupations, complete with dozens of uniforms, outfits and accessories.

“Barbie wasn’t so expensive; it was getting her all the clothes and houses and cars and accessories that built this whole business model in the 1960s,” said Chris Bensch, a curator at the Strong, a museum in Rochester dedicated to the history of toys and play. “Barbie fit with the consumer culture after World War II, as well as this huge demographic of baby boom kids, with parents who had solid enough jobs that they could buy nice gifts.”

They were chubby-cheeked and chinless, but the dolls became wildly popular in the 1980s in part because of how they were made, with computers that generated random combinations of hard plastic heads with plush bodies. A wide range of skin tones, eye colors and hair types made each of the dolls unique. They even came with names, birth certificates and adoption papers. Of the three million Cabbage Patch Kids sold in 1984 alone, no two were alike, according to Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia.

The production lines could hardly keep up with the demand, and shoppers were said to brawl over them in toy store parking lots.

“Barbie represents the perfect golden Californian: No warts. No pimples. The kind of girl every kid perhaps would like to grow up to be,” Arnold Greenberg, the chief executive of Coleco, which manufactured the Cabbage Patch line, told The New York Times in 1985. But, he said, “Cabbage kids are all different.”

“They are not perfect,” he said. “They represent you and me with all our warts. They are almost antihero.”

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The marketing of Frisbees was tied to a cultural phenomenon: a fascination with U.F.O. sightings in Roswell, N.M.CreditKeystone-France/Gamma-Keystone, via Getty Images

The Frisbee

The popular belief is that Frisbees — sometimes also called Flying Saucers — were created in the 1950s, after Americans became obsessed with accounts of U.F.O. sightings in Roswell, N.M. But flying discs were being tossed long before then — although they weren’t actually toys, but metal pie trays. As recounted by Toys and American Culture, students at Yale University would finish their treats from the nearby Frisbie Pie Company in New Haven and toss the empty dishes back and forth, shouting “Frisbie!” to warn bystanders.

It was Walter Morrison, a former World War II military pilot, and his friend Warren Franscioni who improved the design and marketed the resulting disc as a toy. At first they tried to tap into the growing public fascination with extraterrestrials by giving the disc names like Pluto Platter. Eventually, though, they reverted to calling the toy simply Frisbee.

Early on, to help business, Mr. Morrison and Mr. Franscioni demonstrated the toys’ aerodynamic capabilities on college campuses, but observers were skeptical, said Mr. Bensch, the toy museum curator.

“They didn’t believe it could do the things it did, and thought it had to have an invisible wire,” he said. So the company offered the toy free but said the invisible wire would cost a dollar. Before long, there seemed to be one on every roof.

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The hula hoop craze twirled through the United States in 1958. Children and adults spun the hoops around not only their waists but also their arms, necks, chests, shoulders and legs.CreditEddie Hausner/The New York Times

The Hula Hoop

The craze that first twirled its way into postwar American backyards in 1958 began when two toymakers, Spud Melin and Richard Knerr, learned of a bamboo hoop that children in Australia spun around their waists in gym class. Seizing on the idea, the two men enlisted the Phillips Petroleum company to create a colorful, pliable plastic version, and a gyrating phenomenon took hold, especially among California hipsters.

Knobs on the Etch A Sketch move the invisible stylus horizontally and vertically, but some people have managed to form curves to create intricate works of art.CreditJohn Ewing/Portland Press Herald, via Getty Images

Etch A Sketch

Invented in France, where it was called L’Écran Magique, the drawing toy was a sensation when it was manufactured for the American market in 1960 by the Ohio Art Company. The toys were filled with an aluminum powder and plastic beads that clung to the inside of a screen. Two knobs allowed the user to control a stylus that would draw, or etch, lines — one knob horizontally, the other vertically — through the powder. Carefully turning the knobs simultaneously could produce curves, and some have created intricate works of art.

“Its name in France was the Magic Screen, and that paralleled television,” Mr. Bensch said. “Televisions were in black and white; so was Etch A Sketch.”

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Chuck Foley and Neil Rabens, co-creators of Twister, demonstrating how to play the game in 1966. It was originally called Pretzel.CreditBuzz Magnuson/St. Paul Pioneer Press

Twister

“They said it was like selling sex in a box,” Mr. Bensch said.

The game was originally marketed in 1966 for ages 6 and up, but Sears Roebuck wouldn’t list it in its catalog because the company thought the idea was too racy, according to Toys and Games.

In the game, a spinner would dictate which limb would go on which enlarged colored dot on a large vinyl floor mat (“Right hand, yellow”; “Left foot, green”). A player who fell would be out of the game.

Then one day Johnny Carson demonstrated it on “The Tonight Show” with a guest, the actress Eva Gabor. Millions of people saw them intertwined and giggling, and the game took off, with more than three million copies sold by 1967.

Teachers of young children have even found a place for it in classrooms.

“You don’t even have to know how to count,” Mr. Bensch said. “You just have to know the right foot from the left foot.”

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A game of Monopoly in 1973. The designs for the original pawns were based on Cracker Jack prizes.CreditBill Peters/The Denver Post, via Getty Images

Monopoly

The inspiration for Monopoly was called the Landlord’s Game, developed in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie Phillips to show how land-grabbing helped greedy property owners while impoverishing tenants, according to Toys and Games.

The game that was later developed by Charles Darrow and bought by Parker Brothers ditched the moral lessons, and suddenly, bankrupting friends and family members became a favorite pastime in millions of households.

For just $1, the game was a worthwhile investment during the Great Depression.

“It was hours of occupation, fun and socializing that you could keep enjoying again and again,” Mr. Bensch said. “It’s a testimonial to the right thing at the right time.”